Health Matters | Paul Corrigan's blog

On Tuesday evening I heard an inspiring speaker talk about the role he and his company are playing in the development of efficient hospitals in India. This was the third such talk I have heard over the last 6 months or so – all from Indian entrepreneurs who are driving down the cost of health care and thereby bringing it to many more people than under current provision. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I posted on the necessity for the Labour opposition to construct a set of medium to long term policies for the NHS which would clearly see them work with it over a period of time that I think of as ‘the long austerity’.

I received a number of comments from people who felt that the reforms in which as special adviser to Alan Milburn, John Reid and Tony Blair I was involved from 2001 – 2007 had laid the ground for the current reforms and that I should take some of the blame for the current Government. Read the rest of this entry »

If the Health and Social Care Bill passes through Parliament before Easter, it will mark the end of a political period in NHS politics. For the last 18 months it has been possible to define one’s overall political position as being for or against the Bill. This has meant that the Labour Party has been able to define its policy on the NHS through its stance on the Bill. That is perfectly legitimate for an opposition party. The Government proposes and the opposition – usually – opposes.

Given that the election took place in May 2010 it is also legitimate for an opposition to spend some time working through its policy rather than setting out its stall so far in advance of another election. Read the rest of this entry »

As I commented last week, I have given up waiting for the Government to make a coherent case for its reforms. So when, in late December, the Times published the story that a new amendment had been laid in the Bill to increase the level of the private patient income cap for Foundation Trusts, I did not expect too much from the Government by way of an explanation about why this was an important and necessary aspect of the whole NHS reform programme.

I was not disappointed. Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t really want to turn this blog into a set of explanations of the way in which those steeped in politics understand the world, but following some of last week’s feedback on my post about Nixon’s recognition of China, I think some people might find it useful for me to explain something of the ways of NHS politics.

Over the last week there has, quite rightly, been a great deal of publicity about the silicone implant problems being experienced by a significant number of women. Watching the DH and the Secretary of State wrestle with this difficult problem and developing their argument has been a bit painful at times and people have asked me how issues like this might be dealt with in a better way. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the first things I should say is that if we look back a year and think about the predictions made in early January 2011, it demonstrates that trying to predict the future politics of the NHS is a mug’s game.

Back in January 2011 the Government had just published its Health and Social Care Bill. The Bill was a true reflection of the White Paper that had been published the previous July and contained the ‘revolutionary’ changes outlined in it. Everyone was pretty confident about the reform programme – which had just been vetted by Oliver Letwin. Read the rest of this entry »

Regular readers of the blog will not be surprised that I am returning to the problem of the Government’s narrative about the NHS. What story is it trying to tell? Read the rest of this entry »

Back in April someone who was just about to start working for the Government on NHS reform asked me what the biggest risk was to their success. I said I thought it was clear. The biggest risk would be what would happen if the vast majority of those GPs that had once been enthusiastic about commissioning lost interest and walked away? Read the rest of this entry »

To conclude this trilogy of posts on the likelihood of a Government retreat on the autonomy of Foundation Trusts, I want to examine lasts weeks’ assertion of a new Government policy by David Nicholson. Read the rest of this entry »

Given the scale of the retreats that the Government have undertaken with their NHS reforms, there is a rather sad game played by those few of us policy wonks that are interested in NHS reform. The game is called ‘Anticipate the next retreat’.

The rules go something like this. Since over the last few months the Government have been moving in the opposite direction from the policy with which they started off, what is the next big retreat going to be about? Read the rest of this entry »